{"id":35999,"date":"2026-05-24T16:24:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T23:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/?p=35999"},"modified":"2026-05-24T18:17:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T01:17:42","slug":"mindspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.podfeet.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/mindspace\/","title":{"rendered":"MindSpace \u2014 An Amazing Mind Mapping Tool You Can Afford"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"MindSpace
<\/a>MindSpace in the Mac App Store<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You may remember the very sad day when Craig Scott, maker of my beloved iThoughts mind mapping tool, decided to shutter the doors on his company. I wrote an article called RIP iThoughts – Choosing a New Mind Mapping Tool<\/a>, and it became one of my most popular posts. I found my community of mind map lovers!<\/p>\n

I settled on MindNode, which has been around for ages. It technically met all of my requirements, but it’s just not the same<\/em>. Little things were missing, like the ability to use \u2325 and a number to fold and unfold a specific number of levels. With the complex mind maps I make, being able to see just down to level 3 is really useful. It also requires an extra “enter” keystroke after creating a new node to be able to add another one, and I always forget and end up editing the existing node instead of adding one.<\/p>\n

MindNode is also bifurcated now into two versions: MindNode Classic and MindNode Next. While they’re still maintaining the classic version, MindNode Next is the future. And there’s one thing I really don’t like about it: Next keeps all of your maps inside its own database. One of the joys of mind maps is their portability, so I really don’t want my maps held captive.<\/p>\n

Back in 2024, shortly after I made the post, Stephen Ball suggested I take a look at MindSpace. I gave it a poke, and it didn’t meet one of my primary objectives \u2014 the ability to open iThoughts mind maps. It also didn’t support that \u2325-number thing to fold nodes. Stephen posted a while later that he was able to import iThoughts mind maps and also that it now supports \u2325-number to fold nodes.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember what inspired me to listen to Stephen and try MindSpace again in mid-2026, but I am really<\/em> glad I did!<\/p>\n

Pricing<\/h2>\n

I don’t usually like to start a review with the pricing, but this might be the most important thing to know about MindSpace. As of this moment in time, you can get a subscription to MindSpace for the grand total of a dollar a month. $12 a year too rich for your blood? If you go on the annual plan, it’s only $8! Hate subscriptions, even ones that cost less than two grande mochas at Starbucks? How about a lifetime license to the pro version for $13? Oh, but what about your family? Yeah, it covers Family Sharing too.<\/p>\n

And it works on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. There’s a free version with some limitations, but I didn’t even look to see what they were after playing with MindSpace for about 5 minutes. I went for the annual plan because I think $13 for a lifetime license is too low.<\/p>\n

First Look<\/h2>\n

MindSpace on the Mac and iPadOS are really similar, with some slight differences. Some features are in menus instead of onscreen buttons, but the capabilities are nearly identical. Even the iPhone version can do everything the other platforms can, even if it’s a bit tough on such a tiny screen.<\/p>\n

\"MindSpace
MindSpace Window Overview<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When MindSpace first comes up, you’ll see a very simple and clean interface. I took a screenshot of it for the shownotes, but then splatted comment bubbles all over it to explain the simplicity. Kind of wrecks the elegance of the tool, though.<\/p>\n

In the center, you get a blank node with a purple plus button to the right, inviting you to add a child node. Before you make any changes to the blank canvas, you’ll see two hints: “drag to move node” and “double click to edit text”.<\/p>\n

Like any good mind mapping app, on the Mac or on iPad with a keyboard, you can use keystrokes like tab to add a child node, and enter to add a sibling node. But MindSpace also has what’s called the Node Toolbar.<\/p>\n

The Node Toolbar sits at the bottom of the screen, and gives you a pencil icon for editing text in nodes, and two buttons to add child and sibling nodes. These are especially useful when only using touch, or if you just don’t like remembering keystrokes. There’s more to the node toolbar than those three buttons, but we’ll get to those later.<\/p>\n

Layouts<\/h2>\n

Every mind map doesn’t convey the same type of information. I might be creating one to map out a video for ScreenCastsONLINE, dropping in new nodes as I learn about features, and then rearranging them into a story. You might be planning your next novel. These two different mind maps are likely to require different kinds of layouts for the maps themselves.<\/p>\n

The classic layout has a central node, with ever-expanding branches to the right and left. But in a mind map for a novel, you might need to figure out who the characters will be and their relationships. With MindSpace, you can switch to an organization chart layout where the central node is at the top, and the children are laid out below … well, like a business org chart.<\/p>\n

Or, if you’re trying to lay out the sequence of events, maybe a timeline layout would be helpful where the central node is on the left, and its immediate children go straight to the right, with their children going up and to the right.<\/p>\n

All mind mapping apps have different layouts like this, but I’ve never seen one with so many options within each category. MindSpace has 8 classic mind map layouts, 12 org charts, 12 timelines, and 12 tree diagrams, which are sort of a combo between the mind map and timeline layouts.<\/p>\n

The differences between these layouts within a category are things like whether the text of nodes is inside a filled, rounded rectangle, or sitting on top of a line, and whether the line branches are squared off, swoopy, or rounded.<\/p>\n

But what makes MindSpace really stand out is that you can set these layouts on a node-by-node basis! So if we go back to your novel, you can have the org chart layout applied to just your characters, but you can have a timeline layout where you’re trying to figure out the sequence of events.<\/p>\n

But what if you want to unleash your own creativity on how a node or the whole map looks? The developer just added Custom Layouts, where you can go crazy with your own combinations of layouts.<\/p>\n

Relationships and Summaries<\/h2>\n

There are situations where the relationship between nodes cannot be explained by simple mind map node branches. In MindSpace, there are two features to help with this, one of which I’ve seen in other mind mapping apps.<\/p>\n

The first is called a relationship, which is a line between two nodes with some text on the line. In the shownotes, I am planning a fictitious vacation, and I invited the family from Chevy Chase’s Christmas vacation. This gave me the opportunity to add a relationship between Clark and Cousin Eddie since I didn’t want anyone to think that Ellen was related to him.<\/p>\n

Once you connect two nodes with a relationship, you have vast control over the formatting. You can change the format of how the text looks – on the line, inline, in a box of all different shapes, the color of the background of the box, the line color and thickness and whether or not you want arrows on either end or both … pretty much anything you’d like to change is available from the Format menus under the paintbrush.<\/p>\n

\"MindSpace
Relationship Arrow<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other tool that sort of fits in this category is Summary, and this is a feature I haven’t experienced in other applications for mind mapping. You first select some nodes (hopefully near each other) and then tap the button in the top menu that shows a curly bracket (or as I like to call it, a squirrely bracket) pointing at some nodes. You’ll be rewarded with a squirrelly bracket next to the selected nodes, and a new node to describe what you’re summarizing.<\/p>\n

This new node is special; it’s actually a standalone main node, which means you can give it children. If you move the summary node around, the squirrely bracket modifies to keep the focus on the nodes it’s supposed to be pointing towards.<\/p>\n

\"MindSpace
Summary With Squirrely Brackets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve wanted a squirrely bracket SO many times when making a mind map, but I’ve never had it before MindSpace. It turns out that summaries can also fully enclose the nodes identified with a polygon. Obviously, this gets pretty weird and ungainly if the nodes aren’t near each other, but it can work well to identify a collection to be summarized.<\/p>\n

\"MindSpace
MindSpace with Polygon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Images & Links<\/h2>\n

In my imaginary vacation example, I took advantage of two more options in MindSpace. You can add images to your nodes but it’s not entirely obvious how this works. If you tap the image icon in the top center menu bar, it opens a panel on the right. The developer has included some cute little built-in colorful icons, or you can draw something, or there’s a button that says Photo.<\/p>\n

On the Mac, it just takes you to the Finder to choose a graphic you’ve downloaded or created. But on iPadOS (and iOS), it will give you three options:<\/p>\n